2021: A Year in Gear (What You've Bought or Want to Buy in 2021)

[justin3am]

That and the new ACL quad LFO both look snazzy.
I've put up a bunch of eurorack stuff for sale. Also some pedals and studio stuff.

I'm going to be putting together a Serge system this summer and I'll likely be ordering a Trident 88 32-channel console at the end of the year. I have most of the funds together but I don't have the space! Next year, all of the music budget will go into the garage conversion I have planned.

I'm still not sure how I want to proceed with the Serge system. I love the look of the 4 panel Random*Source system on the Patch Point website but I'd really like a Resonant EQ, so I may end up with a La Bestia II, a TKB and 2 rows of their 4x4 format modules.

[pekbro]

Apparently I needed moar envelopes: A-Envelope from Velectronic.

That's a sharp looking module. Nice to see a Euro module that uses encoders with LED rings, that's the right way to do it if you can't go knob-per-function.

Yeah, this is the first time I've seen that in a module that I can recall. The panel is aluminum,
so they have machined out a window for the LED ring and filled it with acrylic or something
to let the light shine through it, as opposed to etching PCB as would be done by most.

The engineering behind the module was definitely one of my main considerations.

[pekbro]

That and the new ACL quad LFO both look snazzy.
I've put up a bunch of eurorack stuff for sale. Also some pedals and studio stuff.

I'm going to be putting together a Serge system this summer and I'll likely be ordering a Trident 88 32-channel console at the end of the year. I have most of the funds together but I don't have the space! Next year, all of the music budget will go into the garage conversion I have planned.

I'm still not sure how I want to proceed with the Serge system. I love the look of the 4 panel Random*Source system on the Patch Point website but I'd really like a Resonant EQ, so I may end up with a La Bestia II, a TKB and 2 rows of their 4x4 format modules.

I've been thinking a lot about the serge stuff myself, though I don't think I would trade what I have,
I would just add a serge system probably. Excited to see how you go with that anyway.

[justin3am]

I just can't bring myself to keep anything that doesn't get used. Lately, the only parts of my modular that I've actually been using are my smaller, more focused systems. The big stationary system sits unused as I do less sound design and more tracking. I anticipate going from about 1600HP of modules to 1000-900HP. Still a lot of modular but I'll get a lot of space back.

[pekbro]

I just can't bring myself to keep anything that doesn't get used. Lately, the only parts of my modular that I've actually been using are my smaller, more focused systems. The big stationary system sits unused as I do less sound design and more tracking. I anticipate going from about 1600HP of modules to 1000-900HP. Still a lot of modular but I'll get a lot of space back.

Ahh, that makes sense definitely. I forgot that we were talking super gear squirrel levels here,
where downsizing is often about safety and the reduction of crushing hazards as well as freeing
up space.

[justin3am]

[justin3am]

I did just recently mention the time Orion caused my Shared System to take a nose dive. Glad no one was underneath it at the time.

[ghettosynth]

...

[pekbro]

Apparently I needed moar envelopes: A-Envelope from Velectronic.

https://velectronic.net/a-envelope

While that's a much better design and is more capable than Noise Engineering's Pons Asinorum, which I promptly pulled out of my rig and it's sitting in a box, I still don't like this sort of thing in a modular.

You don't like envelopes? heh, j/k plz explain, if you like. I gotta say I am becoming very curious
as to what you do like, beyond the Buchla stuff anyway.

For me, admittedly, getting this is much about the snazzyness of the design. Fortunately, an envelope generator is always going to be in demand for me as well. It's comparably expensive, but it's only a days and a half worth of tips for me at work, so I don't really care.

[ghettosynth]

You don't like envelopes? heh, j/k plz explain, if you like. I gotta say I am becoming very curious
as to what you do like, beyond the Buchla stuff anyway.

For anything that I'm going to touch while performing, I want knob per function. I hate having to think about working with modules that don't have an obvious U/I, or, do but there's still a high potential for a mistake. I don't have a Deepmind because they chose not to put one more set of envelope controls on the front panel.

[pekbro]

You don't like envelopes? heh, j/k plz explain, if you like. I gotta say I am becoming very curious
as to what you do like, beyond the Buchla stuff anyway.

For anything that I'm going to touch while performing, I want knob per function. I hate having to think about working with modules that don't have an obvious U/I, or, do but there's still a high potential for a mistake. I don't have a Deepmind because they chose not to put one more set of envelope controls on the front panel.

Ah ok, I can understand that. Yeah I dunno, maybe look at the L-1 VC ADSR, its only
dual envelopes though and it's still pretty wide. Not sure you would be able to find
much better than a dual, that I can think of anyway. The 1010 Toolbox can generate 8
envelopes and is pretty much like that, but you still need to navigate to each via touch
or whatever, they don't offer much duration either sadly.

[pekbro]

Performance related control is definitely a subject I am very interested in, as it relates to modular.
Always an interesting challenge I think. Anyway, I do have some stuff on my list in regard to that,
the fader bank, performance mutes and controllers etc. I can say that the joysticks on the FoH INM
are super handy and interesting in terms of performance. Personally, I think for me anyway, a nice
big fader bank is going to go a long way and be the most bang for the buck out of the box. Though
there are some nice macro storage systems that seem interesting as well, like the Livestock Ellis
and similar. I have the maze which operates similarly, and that's pretty cool.

[ghettosynth]

Performance related control is definitely a subject I am very interested in, as it relates to modular.
Always an interesting challenge I think. Anyway, I do have some stuff on my list in regard to that,
the fader bank, performance mutes and controllers etc. I can say that the joysticks on the FoH INM
are super handy and interesting in terms of performance. Personally, I think for me anyway, a nice
big fader bank is going to go a long way and be the most bang for the buck out of the box. Though
there are some nice macro storage systems that seem interesting as well, like the Livestock Ellis
and similar. I have the maze which operates similarly, and that's pretty cool.

For me, and everyone is different, this is why I like really chunky old school style modules that are large enough to make them easy to navigate while jamming.

Anymore though, "jamming" doesn't mean what it used to mean. These days it means listening to a drone and moving knobs very slowly.

[pekbro]

For me, and everyone is different, this is why I like really chunky old school style modules that are large enough to make them easy to navigate while jamming.

Anymore though, "jamming" doesn't mean what it used to mean. These days it means listening to a drone and moving knobs very slowly.

I get that, you should definitely have a look at the L-1 stuff then, big knobs, often per parameter.
I believe everything is available as DIY and Aleksei is able to sell stuff surprisingly cheap in comparison to his competition imo.

[ghettosynth]

For me, and everyone is different, this is why I like really chunky old school style modules that are large enough to make them easy to navigate while jamming.

Anymore though, "jamming" doesn't mean what it used to mean. These days it means listening to a drone and moving knobs very slowly.

I get that, you should definitely have a look at the L-1 stuff then, big knobs, often per parameter.
I believe everything is available as DIY and Aleksei is able to sell stuff surprisingly cheap in comparison to his competition imo.

Cool, I didn't know about L-1. I've setup some synthcube notifications for when some things get back in stock.